Novel Sustainable Anode Materials and Interfacial Chemistry for Improved Rechargeable Batteries

The fast growth of the renewable energy market leads to a rapidly increased demand for high-performance energy storage. Despite the great success of the current lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in portable electronics, the findings of new applications such as in electric vehicles and in large-scale energy storage revealed the limitations of current LIBs in terms of performance, cost, life time and safety. To meet the future application requirements, this dissertation is focused on the innovation and improvement of anode materials, characterization and understanding of material surface properties and modification of the anode materials.A new carbon material recovered from waste tire with higher capacity and lower cost is discovered. In the meantime, there are also some issues for the application of such material. Various characterization techniques, such as neutron vibrational spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were utilized to better understand the carbon surface properties. Several methods were applied for surface modification to future improve the interface between electrode and electrolyte, resulted in better performance of tire-derive carbon in LIBs.Another way for alleviating interfacial problem on the anode side is through the use of high voltage anode materials such as lithium titanates. Mono-dispersed nanosized lithium titanates was synthesized with shape controlled method, which showed high rate capability and long cycle life. Moreover, a sustainable lithium source is tested for application as battery material precursor.By integration of materials modification, interfacial engineering, and the advanced characterization techniques, we could potentially build a low-cost, safe and long cycling advanced rechargeable batteries.